


What They Made You

by mysweetadeline



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 05:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15017828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysweetadeline/pseuds/mysweetadeline
Summary: “Say goodbye, if you don’t you’ll regret it.”His mom’s voice is what should’ve been soothing, but instead the sound of it makes Tony want to bash his head into a wall.(It isn’t until later, much later, that he properly says goodbye.)





	What They Made You

 

1.

“Say goodbye, if you don’t you’ll regret it.” 

 

His mom’s voice is what should’ve been soothing, but instead the sound of it makes Tony want to bash his head into a wall.

 

(It isn’t until later, much later, that he properly says goodbye.)

 

He frowns, turns away and mumbles something incoherent and insignificant.

 

Her expression falls, her wrinkles show through her makeup, and for a second, he can see just how tired she really is. Then her facade is up again, and she leans in and softly presses a kiss to his cheek. 

 

Tony is hit with the sudden urge to tell her how much he loves her and how much he wishes he could love dad.

 

But his mouth stays glued shut, the nature of teen rebellion taking control.

 

The door swings shut behind them, and his mother’s perfume lingers in the stale hallway air while his father’s forgotten top hat hangs from the top hook of the dusty wooden coat hanger.

 

Their bodies are found the next day and their deaths cover the front pages of newspapers for the next three weeks.

 

But their ghosts, their ghosts haunt Tony for the rest of his life.

 

He regrets it.

 

2.

The phone is ringing.

 

He’s praying, pleading to whatever spiritual being that’s up there not that he makes it out of this, but that Pepper will just answer the phone.

 

Because he is hurtling into a wormhole 50000 feet above home, carrying a goddamn missile towards the heart of an alien compound, and he just need to hear  _ her _ voice, telling him it’s going to be okay and guiding him back from this darkness.

 

(Home isn’t the place, Tony, it’s the people.)

 

Because surrounded by all the stars and the galaxies and the shadow of death getting closer and closer, Tony has never felt more at peace.

 

Not when his dad gave the hint of a smile at Tony’s second attempt at reprogramming a computer, and not when Nick Fury presented him with a chance for a purpose.

 

Not at Thanksgiving dinners or birthday celebrations. Not singing by the campfire or watching the fireworks for the first time on New Years Eve.

 

Not even the moment that Obadiah Stane pulls out the one thing he thought he needed most, his lifeline, and Tony is flooded with betrayal but afterwards, hope, because he lives when they both thought he would die and for the first time in a long time, he realizes he is more man than machine.

 

The stars are blinding, but Pepper’s flashing face is the last thing Tony sees before he falls.

 

The phone is ringing,

but Pepper’s eyes are glued to the TV screen.

 

3.

He can’t breathe.

 

He knows of panic attacks, his uncle Edward died from one, but he never thought it would feel this -  _ real? _

 

All it took was that stupid drawing, something so small, something so trivial, something Howard would’ve scorned at… 

 

And suddenly he can’t breathe and it was like the air was trying to suffocate him, and Harley, the kid, won’t stop talking, and “just give me a second, okay”, and the air is freezing and the ground is stone, and it’s New York all over again, and it’s all because of this weight pressing down on his chest, and -

 

It’s waking up in Afghanistan

It’s Yinsen’s last words

It’s Obi’s piercing blue eyes

It’s Rhodes disappointment

It’s the memory of his father

It’s 

It’s 

 

(The only thing you really fight for is yourself.)

 

It’s hurtling into the wormhole

It’s the thousands of stars colliding 

It’s New York

It’s Pepper

It’s New York all over again.

 

“Tony,” the kid says in the voice of a child who’s asking his parents to check for monsters under his bed, and Tony wants to cry.

 

“I’m okay,” is what he says.

 

He can’t breathe.

 

4.

“He’s my friend.”

 

The words hit deep, and Tony winces.

 

He should’ve ended this at that moment because both sides have gone too far when it really wasn’t anyone’s fault.

 

(By the time Tony’s pride accepts this, it’s far too late.)

 

But the rage throbbing against his brain causes poison to flow through his veins, and beneath the suit, Tony tightens his fists.

 

“So was I.”

 

The man in the emblem of America sighs, his eyes cloud with disappointment and Tony has seen that look before, seen it a million times over, seen it when he was five years old, bashfully trying to cover up the dirt stain on his Sunday’s shirt, when he was 7 and he just couldn’t figure out how to build a circuit for his advanced science class, when he was 10 and he put his homemade mini robot on a sturdy table in the biggest study in the house and found it in the trash the next day, when he was 15 and he started dating girls with red lips and air where their brains should be, when he was 16, when he was 17, when he was 5 and when he was 18 and all the years in between. 

 

The image of Howard’s stern face staring down at him with the epitome of disappointment is and will be forever burned into the back of his mind.

 

They fight, Barnes is down and Steve is weak and Tony is close, so close, he just needs to get the - hit the -

 

But Steve swings his arm and knocks him to the ground. 

 

He hits his mask off, and he rears back for a final blow and Tony thinks to himself this is it, this is how it ends.

 

He brings his hands back up in a weak attempt to soften the blow that’s coming, because he’d rather have most of his face intact and preserved for the funeral, and he stares Steve straight in the eye so he will be haunted by the guilt forever, and -

 

The blow never comes.

 

Steve hits his arc reactor instead because he’s ten times the man that Tony could ever be, and maybe Howard knew this, saw this every time he looked at Tony. 

 

His suit makes a gargled, deflated sound as it shuts down, and Tony thinks that maybe, just maybe he was wrong and he might actually be more machine than man. 

 

They’re leaving, and Tony gives one final dig, one final burst of anger.

 

“That shield doesn’t belong to you, my father made that shield.” 

 

(My father made u.)

 

The shield clatters on the hard stone floor.

 

Tony wonders if he and Steve were ever friends.

 

5.

The hard shell of a man that Tony hides behind cracks for the first time since those damn drawings of Manhattan and a hot tear rolls down his cheek.

 

“I don’t wanna go, please Mr. Stark.”

 

The kid dies in his arms, and Tony tells himself that this is just another person in the long list of people that he has let down.  

 

But it’s different this time, somehow, because this time Tony got far too attached.

 

Maybe he deserves this, maybe the universe collected all of his sins and decided to punish him all at once. 

 

(Don’t be what they made you.)

 

Because underneath the glory and the valour of the iron man, there is a boy made up of the harsh words of his father and the soft heart of his mother.

 

Deep down, the boy wonders will I ever be good enough?

 

Tony is still searching for the answer.

 

The kid must have drawn a short straw the day he met him because Tony’s too broken to be trying to fix someone else. 

 

Peter’s gone

Quill and his friends are gone 

Strange is gone

 

Tony is alone.

 

His shell breaks and the boy behind the suit of armour steps out. 

 

He cries.


End file.
